Episode 14 - THE EXQUISITE BEAUTY OF LETTING GO

There are rare individuals whose lives hold such an elegance and a beauty that they inspire those around them. They don't live this way because they have escaped suffering, but rather they choose to respond to their challenges with courage, resilience and kindness.

In this episode, I share the story of a woman facing death with remarkable artistry and generosity. Rather than allowing a devastating illness to define her final chapter, she transforms it into an offering. Her life becomes a kind of testament in my early career reminding me that love, creativity and grace do not always fade in the shadow of a terminal diagnosis.

Sometimes we are gifted with the privilege of witnessing such a life daring to become more luminous every day. May her story bless you as much as it does me.

New Episodes will be released on the 1st and the 15th of every month of 2026.

Please share with others that might find a blessing...

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Judy Malloy. Welcome to Where We Touch, a podcast about healing, story, and moments of connection. There is an art in dying well, much like there is an art in living well. In this episode, a painter chooses creativity and connection in the face of her own death. Her choices don't deny her reality, they deepen her relationship to it. She knows she is dying, and still she chooses to create, not for a future exhibition, not for potential sales or stellar reviews, but because she sees every day of her life as a gift to be cherished and celebrated with an open heart. She chooses to embrace the world she is departing, and she does it with immense generosity and love. Episode fourteen The Exquisite Beauty of Letting Go. Grace is as gentle as the pastel artworks she creates. Time with her is a perpetual lesson in resilience. She's a professional artist, has been most of her adult life. She now has small cell terminal lung cancer. Her oncologists tell her she is likely to die before her fortieth birthday, which is three years away. During one of our first appointments, she shares more of her story with me. I think it's because I've relentlessly pursued my passion, which helps just a little, she says. Who knew my love of chrome yellow pastel crayons might have begun this? I spent my days creating golden light on heavily textured paper and blowing the excess away. I now know breathing this highly carcinogenic dust in my tiny windowless studio apartment probably permanently damaged my lungs. Ironic that my favorite color was most likely poisoning me. Every week I roll my table from 90th Street to her pre-war apartment on Riverside Drive. I have a sort of skateboard that straps onto my table to make transporting forty pounds of massage equipment easier. She lives on the top floor, where enormous elongated windows overlook Riverside Park and the Hudson River. Thankfully, there's an elevator. Her exquisite pastel works hang on the walls alongside family photos, each framed with simple elegance. Many of the photographs, mostly in color, show her at an earlier time in her life flowing chestnut hair, a fuller figure, surrounded by friends, family, and the loves of her life, her husband and her two sons. By the time I meet her, the soft curling tendrils have long since gone. Each session she greets me at the door while wearing what I begin to think of as her massage outfit. A deep forest green robe, satiny on the outside, with an impossibly cozy fleece on the inside. Adorning her now bald head is an astonishingly beautiful pale pink silk scarf with lily of the valley, grape hyacinth, and tulips fairly dancing in celebration of spring. Her robe is the constant. The scarves, however, change with every season. As spring gives way to summer, the scarf is covered with roses. In autumn, maple leaves. In winter, intricate, delicate snowflakes, no two alike, decorate the fabric. Oh, where do you find these beautiful pieces? I create them. Her response to the ravages of her disease and experimental treatments is to hand paint ethereal scarves. Perhaps not only to mask her baldness, but also to give all of us who have the privilege of spending time with her a private and highly intimate art exhibition. After several months she asks, would you be all right with me removing my scarf? Of course. She is the first person with terminal cancer I have worked with. How humbling to cradle her skull in its nakedness. As she sinks deeper into relaxation, she allows my hands to completely support the weight of her head. Both of us close our eyes. Her breath, often labored and shallow, slows and deepens. Her stomach growls ever so gently as her nervous system moves from fight or flight to rest and digest. We remain like this in silence, my hands gently cradling her head until she begins to speak. After my third round of chemo, my hair began falling out in great clumps. I decided to shave it all off. My darling husband took the electric razor from my shaking hand and finished it for me. He wiped away my tears, kissed the top of my head, and told me I was beautiful. Since our honeymoon, he's brushed my hair. It's the last thing we did every night before we turned out the lights and climbed into bed. Oh how I miss that. In me, Grace finds a person willing to hold her diminishing physical body and her increasingly heroic spirit. She expresses her fears and her sorrows to me. I'm so frightened I'm going to suffocate, drown as my lungs fill with metastatic fluid, or maybe I'll throw an embolism where the spread of cancer into my bones will create unbearable pain. And my sons, I will never see them graduate. Mary have beautiful children of their own. She describes loved ones who have died, shares how they visit her more frequently in her dreams, waking and sleeping. As I hold her head and massage her hands and feet, and ever so gently apply grapefruit essential oils suspended in Hohoba, her favourite, I realize I have become the place she can speak freely about it all. I tenderly touch her skin, and I listen. During our second spring together, I take a trip to Scotland, and I meet the love of my life. When I return she asks, what has happened to you? Why do you look so different? Oh this is your time. It isn't about me. She dismisses my concerns with a quick smile and twinkling eyes, assuring me that hearing my story is now part of her healing. She wants to know every detail of the ancient pebbled beach and the impossibly turquoise sea of Iona. And she wants to know about him. Well, his eyes are blue. Robin's egg or sky at dusk? The purple shirt he wore when you first met, lilac or Egyptian violet? Oh, what is it like to receive an airmail letter every day written in fountain pen, the same pen that scribed the first poem he wrote for you? What is his name? What does he do? Are you in love? Her questions were relentless. He's a doctor from Surrey, named Nicholas, and yes, I think it is truly a love story. I begin flying to Heathrow from JFK every four to six weeks. At the end of every trip, Grace eagerly anticipates each new installment. I describe long walks by the Thames, street performers in Covent Garden, the fourteenth century Oast house his parents live in, the sweet and succulent taste of Tayberries, like the most delicious raspberries I've ever tasted. I tell her he likens my laughter to elderflower champagne, and that he calls me his ginger haired lioness. Oh Grace, I don't think this is right me telling you all about me during your session. Your love story is now the accompaniment to my massages. I cherish both equally. I insist you must continue to share every tiny detail with me. It fills my heart with joy and reminds me of how beautiful this life is. After a trip to England in March of 1999, I describe the hosts of nodding daffodils. I have a new appreciation of Wordsworth. And I can't believe it. He's taking me to Paris and Monet's Gardens in early May. I'm so excited. Grace makes a point to schedule an appointment before my trip. Before we begin, I have something for you, she says, with a twinkle in her eye. She walks down the hall and returns with a small white box topped with a bow constructed of almost iridescent shades of purple. Come on, open it. I gently untie the shimmering ribbon, lift the lid, and there, beneath perfectly folded purple tissue paper, is a pale green scarf. Impressionistic images of Monet's Japanese footbridge and the wisteria covered pergola in full bloom are painted in the center of the scarf. The remainder is covered in petals, as though a breeze blew the painting and scattered the blossom. Oh Judy, I wanted to celebrate this moment with you, because, in my opinion, every woman in love needs a silk scarf on her first trip to Paris. I cry. She reaches out to dry my tear-soaked cheek. How she has touched me. I pack it in my carry-on to keep it safe. And I love wearing it every day. On our last evening, we board the final cruise on the Seine. I now understand why it's called the City of Lights. As we slowly pass Ile de la Cité, a fierce wind blows across the upper deck where we are sitting. The gust lifts the scarf from my neck where it is loosely draped, as if it has wings, it lifts higher and higher into the sky, its weightless gossamer sheen contrasting vividly with the solidity of Notre Dame's flying buttresses fully illuminated from below. It is hauntingly beautiful, but I am so sad. I touch my now bare neck and give thanks for Grace. When I return to Manhattan, there is a single message on my answering machine from Grace's husband. Sorry to leave a voicemail, but I wanted you to know. Grace died Friday night at five PM. Thank you for taking such good care of her. Five PM New York Time eleven PM Paris time. Almost the exact minute our cruise was passing Notre Dame. Perhaps her final exhalation, her sweet release from pain and suffering miraculously shifted the winds above Paris to forever remind me of the lessons she has blessed me with. You taught me that one's life is only fully lived when one's death is fully embraced. What a teacher you were, Grace. What a teacher you are I'm wondering if you can let yourself settle today just as you are in that awareness. See if you can hear your own breathing. In out in out No need to change anything. Can you follow the quiet constancy of your breath in this moment? If it feels comfortable, bring your attention to your hands. Hands that hold, hands that create, hands that release. Maybe you can look at them, or maybe if you're able, gently hold one hand with the other. And now close your eyes if you're comfortable doing so, or soften your gaze if that's better. Try to imagine a field of color gently coming into your awareness. Let it wash over you. Allow your consciousness to become a kind of canvas, wide enough to hold what is changing in your life. Wide enough to hold what is perhaps fading in your life. Wide enough to notice what remains quietly here. You are alive, breathing, listening, embracing the sacredness of your journey. Can this gift of color within your mind's eye flood your life with a gentle peace? I invite you to rest here for a few more moments. And when you're ready to return to your day, maybe you can bring this quietude with you a little more space. A little more color. A little more beauty. Thanks for listening to Where We Touch. Written and performed by me, Judy Malloy. Edited and mastered by John E. Brady. This is a work of creative nonfiction. The events are portrayed to the best of my memory. While all the stories in this podcast are true, some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.